The largest U.S. banks are "practitioners of crony capitalism," need to be broken up to ensure they are no longer considered too big to fail, and continue to threaten financial stability, a top Federal Reserve official said on Saturday.

Richard Fisher, president of the Dallas Fed, has been a critic of Wall Street's disproportionate influence since the financial crisis. But he was now taking his message to an unusual audience for a central banker: a high-profile Republican political action committee.

Fisher said the existence of banks that are seen as likely to receive government bailouts if they fail gives them an unfair advantage, hurting economic competitiveness.

David J. Renz (top right) is charged with kidnapping a school librarian and her 10-year-old daughter in upstate New York, tying them up, raping the girl and then stabbing the mother to death. The 29-year-old suspect had been charged in January with possession of child pornography and allowed to remain free under terms that included staying offline and away from schools and parks.

US drone attacks on Pakistan's tribal districts are carried out without the consent of the government in Islamabad and are a violation of its sovereignty, a UN official has warned.

Returning from a three-day visit to the country's capital, Ben Emmerson QC, the UN's special rapporteur on counter-terrorism and human rights, said he had been given assurances that there was no "tacit consent by Pakistan to the use of drones on its territory".

Italy's divided parties failed to overcome their differences in a vote for parliamentary speakers on Saturday, deepening the stalemate after last month's deadlocked elections and raising the prospect of a return to the polls within months.

Italy has been caught in an impasse since the election in February that saw the center-left alliance of Pier Luigi Bersani gain a lower house majority but miss the numbers needed to control the Senate as well and form a government.

The European Union's foreign policy chief urged caution on Saturday about a Franco-British drive to lift an EU arms embargo to help rebels in Syria, questioning the impact such a step might have on attempts to reach a political settlement there.

Other EU governments rebuffed efforts by Paris and London at an EU summit on Friday to lift the Syrian arms embargo to help opponents of President Bashar al-Assad, although they asked foreign ministers to discuss it again next week.

A SWAT team in upstate New York is being held up as an example of the difference between military and police training after an officer was captured peering through a backwards sight on his combat rifle. As users on the military Reddit were quick to point out when the image was posted, the reverse sight makes it effectively useless.

A U.S. Army veteran who was fighting for Syrian rebel forces says he is alive and well after a pro-Syrian government group posted a video on YouTube claiming that he had been killed.

The bloodied face of someone resembling Eric Harroun, 30, of Phoenix, was shown in the video, which was posted Wednesday under the title, 'Terrorists, including American Extremist "Eric Harroun" Have Been Terminated.'

But Harroun told MailOnline from his personal email account on Friday that 'Syrian Media must be smoking something, because I am alive and well chilling in Istanbul having a martini at the moment.'

MailOnline obtained Harroun's email address from a family member and has communicated with him in the past using the same email address.

David Cameron and Angela Merkel were at loggerheads tonight after only one country backed Britain and France’s call to arm the Syrian rebels.

At a summit in Brussels today, the Prime Minister and French president Francois Hollande urged other European leaders to back their call for the lifting of an EU-wide arms embargo on the war-torn state.

But they embarrassingly found themselves in a minority of three - with only Slovenia coming out to support their stance.

The name Matthew Jenart began to circulate among parents in Teesside last October. Word had got round that the 28-year-old had been contacting schoolgirls as young as ten on Facebook and seeking to engage them in online chat.
Parents were determined to do something about the internet predator in their midst, but were unsure how to go about it.

That was until the 11-year-old daughter of a woman we shall call Sarah received a message from him. She told her mother, who resolved to discover exactly what he had in mind, and to stop him doing it.

So she set a trap. Posing as her daughter, she instigated a conversation with him on Facebook. Within minutes, she had got the result she was after.

Jenart, claiming to be 15, suggested he and the young girl should engage in some ‘naughty fun’. Asked what he meant, he was explicit: ‘Naked fun,’ adding: ‘It’s only fun, try it you will like it.’

Sarah was sickened by the conversation but was satisfied that she had ‘nailed’ this man for seeking to sexually abuse innocent children. She felt confident that if she went to the police, Jenart would be jailed and the threat to schoolgirls around the area of Thornaby and beyond would be removed.

But she was wrong. Even though Jenart admitted attempting to incite a child under 13 to engage in sexual activity, Teesside Crown Court Recorder Robert Adams allowed him to walk free on Wednesday.

Police fired teargas to disperse supporters of Kenya's defeated presidential contender Raila Odinga gathered in front of the Supreme Court on Saturday, hours before his lawyers were due to file a challenge to his election defeat.

Odinga refuses to accept the slim first-round win by Kenya's richest man, Uhuru Kenyatta, and his allies have said he plans to present a petition alleging collusion between the president-elect and the electoral commission.

Europe and Russia signed a deal on Thursday for a joint Mars mission which will bore beneath the Red Planet's surface for soil samples they hope will solve the mystery of whether there is life beyond Earth.

Europe's space agency had hoped to work with NASA on the two-spacecraft ExoMars mission but turned to the Russians after the U.S. agency pulled out due to budget shortfalls.

The euro zone struck a deal on Saturday to hand Cyprus a bailout worth 10 billion euros ($13 billion), but demanded depositors in its banks forfeit some money to stave off bankruptcy despite the risks of a wider bank run.

Cyprus becomes the fifth country after Greece, Ireland, Portugal and Spain to turn to the euro zone for financial help in the wake of the region's debt crisis.

In a radical departure from previous aid packages, euro zone ministers forced Cyprus' savers, almost half of whom are believed to be non-resident Russians, to pay up to 10 percent of their deposits to raise almost 6 billion euros.

HUNDREDS of Pakistani Christians became homeless in Badami Bagh, Lahore, on Saturday, March 9 after an attack by a mob of 3000 fanatics. Two hundred homes in the Joseph Colony were turned to ashes and poor Christians of the neighbourhood are now living in the streets, desperate for food and other needs. Their children cannot attend school or college due to the destruction and fear. Many residents have expressed great dismay and sorrow, and depression is seeping through the entire community.

One Sajid Masih said, “I feel helpless and unable to do anything for myself and my family”, as he broke into tears. Christians around the country are incensed by the recurring theme of blasphemy allegation followed by attacks and burning down of their vulnerable communities. They have held protests across the country in a concerted effort to vent their disgust at the recent incident and to show solidarity with the victims.

Syria will no longer accept attacks on its territory from across the border with Lebanon, Syria’s Ambassador Ali Abdel-Karim Ali said in remarks published Saturday and Prime Minister Najib Mikati reiterated his call for Lebanon to uphold its dissociation policy.

“What is required of the Lebanese government is that it carry out its duty on the border with Syria,” Ali told As-Safir newspaper.

“We have no interest whatsoever in creating tensions with Lebanon but at the same time, we can never compromise on Syria's security and sovereignty. We are being attacked and we are no longer willing to accept that - ever,” he said.

U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel announced plans on Friday to bolster U.S. missile defences in response to "irresponsible and reckless provocations" by North Korea, which threatened a preemptive nuclear strike against the United States last week.

Hagel said the Pentagon would add 14 new anti-missile interceptors at Fort Greely in Alaska - an effective reversal of an early Obama administration decision - and move ahead with the deployment of a second missile-defense radar in Japan.

The Pentagon also left open the possibility of creating a site on the U.S. East Coast where the Pentagon could field more interceptors capable of striking down an incoming missile. The 14 additional interceptor deployments would cost nearly $1 billion and must be approved by Congress.

A truck loaded with fireworks exploded during a religious procession in a rural village in central Mexico on Friday, killing at least 11 people and injuring dozens more, authorities said.

The blast was set off when a firework malfunctioned and landed on the truck, igniting the fireworks it carried, officials said. Seventy people were burned or had other injuries, and at least 45 were taken to hospitals, authorities in the neighboring states of Tlaxcala and Puebla said.

Police in Northern Ireland have appealed for help in tracking down a teenager described as a "high risk violent offender".

Casey Morgan, 18, has been missing in breach of his licence conditions since the morning of Wednesday March 13.

A spokesperson for the Police Service of Northern Ireland said: "Police have this evening taken the step of warning the public about a high risk violent offender Casey Morgan and to ask for assistance in identifying his current whereabouts as there is a licence recall order out for his arrest and he poses a high risk of causing serious harm."

Radical preacher Abu Hamza has been given short shrift by a judge after complaining about new prosthetics he was given to replace his metal hooks.

US District Judge Katherine Forrest made some concessions to the cleric's legal team but was hesitant about his demands for a new toilet and improvements to his cell as he waits to face terror charges.

She said prison was "not a hotel and so you don't get clean sheets and everything on demand".

A driver who rammed a police car because he thought he was being chased by aliens has been banned from driving and ordered to receive psychiatric treatment.

Brett Webber was in the grip of a psychotic episode when he drove for more than a mile through Exeter on the rims of his van's wheels after all four tyres had been punctured by a police stinger device.

He swerved onto the wrong side of the road during the low speed chase which reached just 25 mph and ended when police cars forced him off the road and into a wall at Rydon Lane.

Throughout the journey Webber was sounding his horn because he believed its noise would ward off the pursuing aliens, Exeter Crown Court was told.

Lil Wayne is the latest celebrity to be hospitalized following seizures. It’s an absolutely terrifying medical emergency, one that most of us will never encounter in our lives. Why, then, are we seeing it in young, seemingly healthy stars? Let’s take a look at some of the more notable cases.

In October 2012, the rapper suffered from “seizure-like symptoms” but his reps were quick to dismiss the mid-flight crisis as “a severe migraine and dehydration.”

It’s now being reported that, on March 12, 2013, Lil Wayne suffered “multiple seizures” after shooting a music video.

Kelly Osbourne
This one shocked a lot of people. Kelly Osbourne, the daughter of Ozzy and Sharon Osbourne, was on the set of her show, Fashion Police, when she collapsed and slid out of her chair while apparently having a seizure.

Rick Ross
Almost exactly a year before Lil Wayne, Rick Ross had two seizures in the same day, both times on a plane. During the first one, which occurred in the morning, he was actually unconscious and needed CPR.